37

The Kuhn Homestead

Fanny

Fanny chose to keep Annaliese while Walter made his trek to Elkhart. She didn’t want to sacrifice a single minute of time with her wee bonny hen. While Annaliese played with her toys, Fanny put all the purchased goods in their proper places, then prepared a pot of beans with chunks of pork and a full cup of molasses. She sang the song she’d learned from Pazzy over and over. Each time she reached the words “All is well,” she sang them at the top of her voice, willing them to be true.

Walter returned an hour past their usual suppertime and entered the cabin with a timidity that took Fanny back to their first days of acquaintanceship. He sat at the table next to Annaliese, as he always did. The girl patted his arm and babbled, frequently interjecting “Fa” in the midst of her chatter, but he sat silently, not tweaking the baby’s curls or tickling her belly or otherwise acknowledging her. He kept his head angled toward the open doorway as if something outside held his attention.

Fanny scooped beans into bowls, balanced a slice of buttered bread on the edge of each, then carried them to the table. As she set down his bowl with a firm clunk, he abruptly met her gaze.

She slowly sank onto her stool. She’d intended to stay silent until he chose to speak, but a question wrenched itself from the center of her soul. “Why did you put yourself between Sloan and me?”

He stroked his fingers through his beard, confusion marring his forehead. “Why should I have not?”

“Because he’s”—she sought an appropriate description. The man wasn’t evil. His letting her go proved it. But neither was he a saint—“unaccustomed to not getting his own way. He might have shot you, Walter.” Her voice quavered, ugly images plaguing her mind. “What would Annaliese have done if he’d shot you?”

Tenderness crept across his features. He looked at his little daughter and smoothed his hand over her hair. “She would have been cared for.”

Fanny swallowed a knot of sorrow. “Because your new wife is coming, and she would see to her.” She spoke what she was certain he’d meant to say.

He turned a mild frown on her. “No.”

Annaliese grunted and pointed to the piece of bread on her bowl. He gave it to her, then slid his hands across the table and took hold of Fanny’s. The bowls of beans in the way forced them to set their elbows wide and lean toward each other. “Fanny, all my life I’ve been a coward. When I was in school, I ran from bullies. Here in Indiana, when my barn caught fire, I ran from it to save myself. Even the letter I sent to my parents, asking them to find a wife for me, was cowardly. Because courtship is frightening, not knowing whether the woman will find you pleasing or not. I could avoid rejection if they did the choosing.”

She considered what he’d said, her heart swelling with compassion, but she didn’t know what to say in response. She gave his hands a gentle squeeze she hoped would communicate understanding.

He shifted his hands, linking his fingers with hers. His callused thumbs rubbed gently back and forth, back and forth, as rhythmic as the little wooden mantel clock’s soft ticktock. “For years and years, I’ve prayed for God to make me a brave man. A man He could be proud to call His own, like David in the Bible—a man after God’s heart. If I could be brave, then I could be proud to be me.”

Fanny shook her head in amazement. “Walter, you should be proud to be you. You’re a gentle man but a strong man. You’re a man who keeps his word. You—”

“No!” He hung his head, his face twisting into a grimace of despair. His thumbs stilled, and his fingers tightened on hers. “A man who keeps his word would have prevented the woman he’d promised to cherish and protect from running into a burning barn to rescue a horse.” His face lifted, and the shame and anguish reflected from his eyes pierced Fanny like a knife. “She’d be alive today if I’d been braver. Stronger.” His hands went limp, and he bowed his head.

Fanny sat with her fingers laced with his, her heart aching for him. And for her. If she would leave his cabin and never live here again, she would leave something of value behind. She whispered, “David.”

Walter raised his head and sent her a puzzled frown. “What?”

A smile formed as words from the Psalms, penned by King David, crept through her memory. They’d been spoken over her grandmother’s grave when she was a young child, and she’d never forgotten them. “You said David was a man after God’s heart. In Psalm 139, David wrote, speaking of God, ‘In thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.’ Me da told me God knows the length of a person’s life. He knows the first day and the last day, and for those who love God and serve His Son, the last day only means stepping into a life more glorious than we can know on this earth. Did Grete know God? Did she serve His Son?”

Walter’s blue eyes brightened with unshed tears. “Yes. Her faith was strong.”

“If she trusted Him, then you need to trust His wisdom in taking her home to Him. There was nothing you could have done that would change the number of the days of her life.” Fanny formed a careful question. “You didn’t send her into the barn, did you?”

He shook his head hard. “No. No, I tried to stop her.”

“Then you honored your pledge to protect her. What she did, she did on her own.” She squeezed his hands. “It isn’t your fault, Walter, that she’s gone. You must stop blaming yourself or…or branding yourself a coward. The man I saw today, standing up to a bully who held a loaded pistol in his hand, is a brave man. An honorable man. A man I am proud to…to…” She gulped. Could she say it? She’d promised God she wouldn’t tell any more falsehoods if He got her to a place of safety. She spoke truth straight from her heart. “To love.”

Walter

Walter stared at her, at her beautiful face shining with love. Love for him. He knew she loved Annaliese. The knowledge had helped give him the courage to confront the riverboat captain. If Walter had died, Kirkpatrick would have gone to prison, and Fanny would have taken Annaliese and raised her as her own. He’d held no worries about his precious Liébling because of his surety that Fanny loved her. But to know she loved him sent a shaft of pure joy through him.

“Walter?” Fanny’s quiet voice intruded upon his jubilant reckoning. “You didn’t fully answer my question. Why did you risk your life for me today?”

He’d done it because the fear of losing her was greater than the fear of that taller, stronger, sneering man with a pistol. He’d done it because he loved her. Only a coward would hold back the truth of how he felt about her. He didn’t want to feel cowardly. He didn’t want to be cowardly. But neither did he want her to misunderstand why he would tell her he loved her now.

Annaliese finished the bread. The beans had sat long enough they wouldn’t burn her mouth. He slipped his hands free of Fanny’s light grip and slid the bowl and spoon in front of his daughter. She held the spoon in her left hand and scooped up beans with the right, cheerfully smearing them over her face as she fed herself.

Convinced Annaliese was fine, he sent up a silent prayer for God to help him find the right words. “Fanny, I want to tell you about the letter from my parents. You should know what it says.”

Her expression reflected uncertainty, but she offered a small nod. “All right.”

He moved his stool next to hers. She gripped her hands in her lap and set her gaze on his face, her lips pressed tight and her eyes seeming to beg. He offered an assuring smile, patted her clenched hands, and cleared his throat. He shared his parents’ failed efforts to locate a wife on their own and told her the arrangement they’d made with a matchmaker.

“The matchmaker said she wouldn’t send someone only because my parents requested it. I, as the husband, had to be the one to say I wanted a wife. That was the other reason I wanted to go to Elkhart. So I could send a telegram to New York to the matchmaker my parents found.”

She sat staring at him in silence. Did she not understand?

He squeezed her hands. “Fanny, I sent the telegram. To the matchmaker.”

She swallowed. “You told her you wanted the wife to come.”

She didn’t understand. He shook his head. “I told her I did not want the wife to come. It wouldn’t be fair for her to come here when I have fallen in love with someone else.”

She jolted, and her fine brows lifted. “S-someone else?” A little cry left her lips. She sat straight up, her eyes searching his face. “Do you love me, Walter?”

Ah, she finally understood. “Ja, I do.” He raised his hands to her face and cupped her cheeks. “I think I already knew, but when I realized Sloan was going to take you away from Annaliese and me, I had no doubt. I couldn’t let you go. Not with him.”

The pale lamplight brought out the little flecks of gold in her brown eyes. He would be content to spend time every evening for the rest of his life admiring those dots of gold. But for now there was more he needed to say.

A tear rolled down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb, then gathered his courage and did what Sloan had refused to do when she lived on his boat—set her free. “But I made an agreement with you. I have enough money to pay for a ticket to New York. I’ll take you to the train station in Elkhart tomorrow if—”

“I do not want to go!”

The exclamation startled him so much he nearly lost his seat.

She grabbed his elbows and held tight. “I love me da and ma. But I can’t live in a big city. Not after living in such a lovely, wide-open place. And not so far away from you and my bonny hen. I—” Her voice broke on a sob. She shifted her gaze toward Annaliese, and musical laughter spilled. She pulled loose and pointed.

Walter looked, and he couldn’t hold back a hoot of laughter. A bowl sat upside down on Annaliese’s head like a hat. Drying sauce formed paths from her head down her face, and beans dotted her shoulders and the front of her dress. He’d never seen such a mess. He rose, chuckling. “Liébling, Liébling, what did you do?”

Fanny hurried to the washstand and dipped a rag.

He took the bowl from his daughter’s head and, frequently chortling or exchanging amused smiles, together they stripped her clothes and mopped away as much goo as possible. The entire time, Annaliese grinned up at them, clearly pleased with herself.

When they’d finished, Fanny turned toward the bureau where Annaliese’s clothes were stored. “I’ll fetch a fresh gown and—”

“The gown can wait.” Walter caught her hand and drew her back. “Please finish what you were saying. You no longer want to go to New York?” Hope beat in his chest like the moth now struggling to reach the flame on the other side of the lamp’s glass globe.

She shook her head slowly, smiling up at him. “Not to live. I told Josephine I’m going to write to my family and ask them to come to Indiana. To the rolling plains that take me to Scotland in my mind. I pray they’ll come, but if they don’t, this is my home now. God brought me here to this beautiful place. To love Annaliese.” She moved closer and placed both palms against his chest. “And to fall in love with you. This is where I’m meant to be.”

She lifted her head, closed her eyes, and began to sing, “ ‘We’ll find the place which God for us prepared.’ ”

Walter loved her voice, loved to hear her sing, but right now he wanted something else. He slipped his arms around her waist, tilted his face to hers, and silenced her tune with a kiss. After a moment’s pause, she went up on tiptoe and eased her arms around his neck. The kiss lingered, and he tasted salt. From her tears or his? He couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t matter. They were happy tears. He’d found love again and, in so doing, discovered the man he’d always prayed to be.

Fanny lowered her heels to the floor and leaned back a bit. With a sweet smile gracing her face, she sang, “ ‘All is well! All is well!’ ”